A baker accused of running a motorist off the Formby Bypass to his death told police that he was scared the dead man was going to beat him up.

Colin Scarisbrick was arrested following the death of 49-year-old school caretaker Jeff Argent.

Mr Argent’s Renault Clio drove off a duel carriageway and hit a lamp post on October 7 after, prosecutors allege, Scarisbrick had cut him up in his van and the two vehicles came together.

Scarisbrick’s VW van was traced to his workplace, Tansey’s Bakery, on an industrial estate in Litherland and when arrested, he replied: “Is this about that stupid thing this morning?”.

During his police interview Scarisbrick said he worked nights and had slept for just four and half hours before getting up and returning to work to clean the bread prover.

He said on the way to work from his girlfriend’s on Duke Street, Southport , he was going past RAF Woodvale when he pulled out to overtake a taxi without looking, which forced Mr Argent in the car beside him to brake.

Scarisbrick told detectives: “He probably thought I was going to hit him. He comes speeding up to the roundabout flashing his lights and all that. He’s still up my arse.”

He said when they stopped at a red light outside Tesco: “He was hanging out the window shouting something like when I get you you’re dead. I did say look mate I’m sorry. In the end I said do you know what? F*** off. So he’s bloody flashing me all the way up the road. I s**t myself. He’s a big guy.”

Scarisbrick, 39, said they reached the roundabout near the BP garage with him in the inside lane and Mr Argent about to overtake him on the outside lane.

He said: “I moved out. I wasn’t letting him past. Then that’s it he’s gone. I thought: relief. Brilliant. He’s gone. I never thought anything of it I just kept driving.”

Mr Argent, from Birkdale, had in fact crashed into the central reservation and then crossed the dual carriageway before colliding with a lamp post.

He was dead before the emergency services arrived on the scene.

Scarisbrick said: “I was waiting for him at the next set of traffic lights thinking “Oh S**t” he’s going to come but he didn’t.”

Asked if their cars touched, as a witness alleges, he said: “No I didn’t touch him. I didn’t come anywhere near him. If there was an impact I would have stopped but there wasn’t.”

Scarisbrick, of no fixed abode, denies causing death by dangerous driving.